Reverse transcriptase, also called RNA-directed DNA polymerase, an enzyme encoded from the genetic material of retroviruses that catalyzes the transcription of retrovirus RNA (ribonucleic acid) into DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). This catalyzed transcription is the reverse process of normal cellular transcription of DNA into RNA, hence the names reverse transcriptase and retrovirus. Reverse transcriptase is central to the infectious nature of retroviruses, several of which cause disease in humans, including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), and human T-cell lymphotrophic virus I (HTLV-I), which causes leukemia. Reverse transcriptase is also a fundamental component of a laboratory technology known as reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), a powerful tool used in research and in the diagnosis of diseases such as cancer.

Retroviruses consist of an RNA genome contained within a protein shell that is enclosed in a lipid envelope. The retrovirus genome is typically made up of three genes: the group-specific antigen gene (gag), the polymerase gene (pol), and the envelope gene (env). The pol gene encodes the three enzymes—protease, reverse transcriptase, and integrase—that catalyze the steps of retroviral infection. Once a retrovirus is inside a host cell (a process mediated by protease), it takes over the host’s genetic transcription machinery to construct a DNA provirus. This process, the conversion of retroviral RNA to proviral DNA, is catalyzed by reverse transcriptase and is necessary for proviral DNA insertion into host DNA—a step initiated by the integrase enzyme.

Retroviral insertion can convert a proto-oncogene, integral to the control of cell division, into …

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Early retrovirus observations

For many years there existed a paradigm in molecular biology known as the “central dogma.” This asserted that DNA is first transcribed into RNA, RNA is translated into amino acids, and amino acids assemble into long chains, called polypeptides, that make up proteins—the functional units of cellular life. However, while this central dogma is true, as with many paradigms of biology, important exceptions can be found.

The first important observation opposing the central dogma came in the early 20th century. Two Danish researchers, Vilhelm Ellerman and Oluf Bang, were able to transmit leukemia to six chickens in succession by infecting the first animal with a filterable agent (now known as a virus) and then infecting each subsequent animal with the blood of the preceding bird. At the time, only palpable malignant tumours were understood to be cancers. Therefore, this observation was not linked to a viral-induced malignancy because leukemia was not then known to be a cancer. (At the time, leukemia was thought to be the result of some manner of bacterial infection.)

In 1911 American pathologist Peyton Rous, working at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now Rockefeller University), reported that healthy chickens developed malignant sarcomas (cancers of connective tissues) when infected with tumour cells from other chickens. Rous investigated the tumour cells further, and from them, he isolated a virus, which was later named Rous sarcoma virus (RSV). However, the concept of infectious cancer drew little support, and, unable to isolate viruses from other cancers, Rous abandoned the work in 1915 and did not return to it until 1934. Decades later the significance of his discoveries was realized, and in 1966—more than 55 years after his first experiment, at the age of 87—Rous was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of tumour-inducing viruses.

DNA provirus hypothesis

In the mid-20th century there were many advances in molecular biology, including the description of DNA in 1953 by American geneticist and biophysicist James D. Watson and British biophysicists Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins. By the 1960s it was understood that sarcomas are caused by a mutation that results in uncontrolled cell division. It was also evident that RSV was inherited during the division of cancerous cells. This inheritance occurred in a manner agreeing with the Mendelian laws of genetic inheritance—laws that heretofore had been understood to apply only to DNA molecules (see the articles genetics and heredity).

Scientists hypothesized that, in order for such viral inheritance to occur, a virus would need to transcribe its RNA genome into DNA and then insert this DNA into the host cell genome. Once incorporated into the host genome, the virus would be transcribed as though it were another gene and could produce more RNA virus from its DNA. This hypothesis, called the “DNA provirus hypothesis,” was developed in the late 1950s by American virologist Howard Martin Temin, when he was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Italian virologist Renato Dulbecco at the California Institute of Technology. Temin’s hypothesis was formally proposed in 1964. The provirus hypothesis came about when experiments demonstrated that an antibiotic called actinomycin D, which is capable of inhibiting DNA and RNA synthesis, inhibited the reproduction of RSV. However, the concept of an RNA molecule’s turning itself into DNA drew very few supporters.

Reverse transcriptase: discovery and impacts

In 1970 Temin and Japanese virologist Satoshi Mizutani, and American virologist David Baltimore, working independently, reported the discovery of an enzyme that could synthesize proviral DNA from the RNA genome of RSV. This enzyme was named RNA-directed DNA polymerase, commonly referred to as reverse transcriptase. This discovery resulted in the identification of a unique virus family (Retroviridae), and the understanding of the pathogenesis of these viruses spurred a rush to discover other infectious cancer-causing agents. In 1975 Temin, Baltimore, and Dulbecco (who mentored both Temin and Baltimore) were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine “for their discoveries concerning the interaction between tumour viruses and the genetic material of the cell.”

In the early 1980s the HTLV-I and HTLV-II retroviruses were discovered and found to cause leukemia. In 1983 HIV was isolated and identified as the causative agent of AIDS. HIV infects white blood cells known as helper T cells and results in the production of more virus and, eventually, cell death and destruction of the immune system. In 2007 approximately 2.1 million people worldwide died of AIDS, an estimated 33.2 million people were living with HIV, and approximately 2.5 million people were newly infected with HIV. Drugs that inhibit reverse transcriptase were the first treatments available to people living with HIV. Nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs) such as AZT (zidovudine)—the first drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to prolong the lives of AIDS patients—act by terminating the proviral DNA chain before the enzyme can finish transcription. NRTIs are often given in combination with non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs) such as efavirenz that act by binding to and altering the shape of the enzyme itself, thereby blocking the enzyme’s function.

The ability of reverse transcriptase to synthesize DNA from RNA has been used in the laboratory. For example, RT-PCR is commonly used to quantify the amount of messenger RNA (mRNA) transcribed from a gene. Because RNA is fragile and difficult to study, a strand of complementary DNA (cDNA) is synthesized from RNA, using reverse transcriptase during the RT-PCR procedure. The cDNA can then be amplified by polymerase chain reaction and used for subsequent experiments.